I believe that Mr. Menery and I have similar philosophies for magic deckbuilding. We both seem to be alumni of the school of "Fun over victory... but winning would be nice too though." for gifted youngsters. (Note: all deckbuilding references in this article will be related to the Commander format. For the basics on Commander go here.) The typical commander deck should be fun to play. Though a fun deck filled with fun cards is prone to being curbstomped by that jerk playing a "zur, the enchanter" deck. So you should also build a deck that can hold it's own. (If you want to win that is, I know plenty of people that make "party" decks that just throw the game into chaos and win in their own fun way. ) Or you could take it in a completely different direction and build a deck that is filled with powerful effects and disruption made to make your opponents day miserable. (The polite name for that type of player is "Griefer") I try to reside somewhere between those three ends of the triangle, albeit furthest away from "Griefer". Below you shall find the decklist for my first commander deck I ever built.
copy and paste the list here
Commander:
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Creatures:
Carrion Feeder
Thoughtpicker witch
Viscera Seer
Bloodghast
Bloodthrone Vampire
nezumi bone-reader
Pit keeper
Dross harvester
fleshbag marauder
nantuko husk
phyrexian ghoul
phyrexian rager
vampire aristocrat
Body Snatcher
Braids, Cabal Minion
Gravedigger
Hell's Caretaker
Scavenger Drake
Skinrender
Solemn Simulacrum
viscera dragger
Corpse Connoisseur
malakir bloodwitch
phyrexian plaguelord
plague dogs
sadistic hypnotist
woebearer
woebringer demon
ascendant evincar
geth, lord of the vault
phyrexian gargantua
tar fiend
butcher of Malakir
Avatar of Woe
Myojin of night's reach
Spells:
Dark Ritual
songs of the damned
Animate dead
Cabal Ritual
Chainer's edict
demonic tutor
sign in blood
soul exchange
stitch together
urborg justice
buried alive
victimize
Dread return
reprocess
promise of power
decree of pain
Enchantments:
Quest for the gravelord
contamination
phyrexian arena
grave pact
black market
null profusion
Artifacts:
Skullclamp
carnage altar
lightning greaves
ashnod's altar
eldrazi monument
planeswalkers:
Liliana Vess
Sorin Markov
Lands:
26 swamp
jund panorama
grixis panorama
evolving wilds
terramorphic expanse
verdant catacombs
marsh flats
phyrexian tower
cabal coffers
(Unfortunately I don't have the rights to pictures for all these cards, but go here and copy paste that list into that large box in the middle and click "Show lowest prices only" and "Exclude basic lands" that will take you to a page with the entire deck list for your viewing pleasure.)
I created this deck shortly after starting to play magic. I hadn't grasped all of the advanced concepts at the time, but I did know the style of cards I liked to play with. At the time I apparently thought myself a necromancer and a master of mindless undead creatures. (Totally not the same thing.) So I gravitated toward the dark, selfish, morally inadequate, Stalin-esque, Endrek Sahr. I just had to play with him, he was my favorite color, had an ability that demanded to be taken advantage of, and was "Flavorful". That card tells a story and that story is one of a man who creates an army of mindless beasts to serve him, and in his arrogance is devoured by them.
Obviously the idea of the deck is to take advantage of Endrek Sahr's ability and bend it to my will. (Whoops, a bit of my black-mage showed there.) So I filled the deck with cards that work with his ability to make small dispensable creatures at little cost, though, because of his ability that kills himself, I also had to balance that with effects that would allow me to manage the growing army of thrulls I was creating. The best way to keep the army small enough to keep Endrek alive was to make a large portion of the deck devoted to sacrificing my own creatures. (Did I mention that black is the color associated most closely to evil?) Knowing that I needed to sacrifice creatures to make the deck work, I was steered toward cards that require a sacrifice to work. (Something that is normally a disadvantage. (By the way, don't discount cards that seem like they have too much of a drawback, a good deckbuilder can make it a positive... usually.))
There are a few interesting choices in there that I'm surprised I made at the time. The deck is rather well designed in that there are so many things that mesh together to add up to something greater than the sum of the two. To avoid sounding too much like John Lennon I'll sum it up this way. If you look at that list you'll see some things that "Interact well". For example, there is the card "Soul exchange". That card is not only useful, it also works better in this deck because Mr. Sahr makes thrulls. That can be simplified into one beautiful word, Synergy. (That will be the extent of my Bill Lumberg impersonation for this article.) Many of the other cards in the deck work in a similar way. Tar Fiend for example enters the battlefield after Endrek Makes the tokens and is able to gobble them up himself to make my opponent discard a whopping six cards and he comes in as a fat 16/16. Format staple "Skull Clamp" also works well with the 1/1 bodies generated by big daddy Sahr. While a deck filled with fun cards is, well, fun. Aside from synergy, it also helps to have powerful cards in your deck. Like I said before, If you are just playing a stack of fun cards, you're going to most likely get your narrow necromancer butt whupped. Probably the most powerful card in my deck is "Grave Pact". I'll give you a minute... Good, I know. If you're behind, that card will dig you out of hole quick. Although, on a non-parenthetical side note, you may have noticed that it works well with the sacrifice theme to control your opponents side of the table while you're ahead also. All of this is a longwinded way of saying this is a deck that is decent at everything. It is fun to play, fairly powerful, and can make my opponent cry. (All things that everyone, at least secretly wants to do.) That brings me to my next point. Beer. (Did that bring me to beer actually?)
I'm going to review my first brew. This is a monumental occasion really. This will be my beginning, my genesis. My first beer is...
Yeah... we can only go up from here. Pabst Blue Ribbon. This beer is the opiate of the masses. The water of the blue collar. The choice of swerve for hipsters. I would say PBR is the definition of mediocrity except I don't feel like being generous today. It has a very soda-like taste. The carbonation overpowers any flavor it may have, though I can't taste much except a very sterile tasting hopiness. I'm normally one for a hoppy beer, but it didn't really seem to do much except make the beer taste bitter. It also has a strange sweetness to it. To sum it up, Pabst tastes like a bitter seltzer water.
Aroma 1
When I smelled this beer, I could only smell water mixed with rubbing alcohol.
Taste 1
It tasted like soda water poured through a pile of fern leaves
Appearance 1
It looked like soda water poured through a pile of fern leaves. Also, when it was first poured, it started fizzing and bubbling everywhere like an ice cold cup of Dr. Pepper. Not the most prized characteristic of most beers.
Texture 2
It was refreshing to get that much carbonation. The bubbles seemed to keep on forming after I drank it, it felt like a jacuzzi was in my mouth. I normally don't like that in a beer, but it was pleasant. (This may be skewed since I was craving a soda.)
I hope this has been an informative look at deckbuilding and that I have steered you away from a
(Note: that picture is actually of me. I was walking back to my car from The Libertine in Dallas and I decided to pass some time in "Good Records" I walked in and there was a band playing. They were actually okay to tell the truth. So I started listening and looking around. This unshaven guy in a plaid shirt walks up to me and offers me a free beer. I accepted of course. He hands me a PBR and says he's about to go on after the current band and it'd be cool if I stayed around to listen. It was then that I looked around and saw that the other three groups of people hanging out in the store were in pockets of three and four. There were three drums at the side of the store plus about a dozen other pieces of equipment ready to be set up... The only people in the store listening to the bands playing were in bands playing. )
Well, that's all I've got for today. As always you can follow me here or on Twitter. @KuromanKuro And if you like what you read then go ahead and Digg/follow me.
I guess instead of supporting each other with record purchases, they could just have a record exchange.
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